Leave Wandering Time for Surprise Discoveries

“I like going on group tours because there are no surprises,” a traveler I met once told me. “I know the whole travel itinerary in advance and someone else is taking care of all the arrangements.”

Oh, but how many things does she miss by aiming for a trip with no surprises?

Travel surprises can be negative things if it’s your flight getting delayed or a bus breaking down. But travel surprises can be beautiful, wonderful things if you stumble upon something great you were not expecting.

Here’s a photo of a surprise in Cusco the first time I visited. We had no plans for the morning and were just wandering. Thank goodness, or we never would have discovered this.

Or this.

Coming back from the Colca Canyon on another trip to Peru, I had thankfully left enough wiggle room in the schedule that I didn’t have to whiz by Chivay where this festival was going on. The whole town was decked out. And dancing.

Speaking of dancing, a semi-organized biking trip I did in the Czech Republic had a nothing-to-do day tacked onto the end. Some vacation-time-starved people would have probably nixed that and gotten back to their jobs faster. I stayed and saw this couple and many others in traditional festival clothes dancing in the street.

In Puerto Vallarta one day I had absolutely nothing on the agenda. So I discovered this—people dressed like Aztec royalty, on their way to the city’s main Catholic church. (?!?!)

Just a few days ago, wandering around Guanajuato with no set plans, I followed the sound of a tin whistle and stumbled upon these kids.

Love, love, LOVE this! I’ve gone to a few festivals that were famous ones everyone knows about. They were crowded and there were a thousand people like me with big hats and cameras. The cool little back street ones you only find when you’re on your own.

Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations Blog was established in 2003 and is one of the most popular single-writer travel blogs in the world, with more than 80,000 monthly unique readers. With advice on the cheapest places to travel, the cheapest places to live, and how to circle the globe for less. Back to Top ↑